Monster Mash, Babadon't Bash

[piper90npcs]

Adora’s been dozing in bed when she hears footsteps and wakes up. It’s just her in her room right now. She looks concerned when North comes to her doorway. “You can come in if you want to speak in private. Are you checking in on everyone?”

“Nope, checking in on you, specifically.” North's aware of Adora having been their victim thanks to a private call from Kerrigan, so he's ready for a quickly-escalating confrontation now. He's purposely blocking and filling up the doorway, something that's not too difficult for a man his size. “You have the chance to turn yourself in now, if you want to avoid a fight.”

“I don't understand...I can't be the imposter, I'd know!” She looks genuinely confused. She gets up from her bed and walks to North with her hands out, clearly unarmed. “You can pinch me or something and see, I'm just me, Adora.”

North bristles a bit when she approaches. “Keep back. I know what you are.”

“Oh.” Adora’s face falls, and then-

-and then she pulls aside part of her uniform to reach into her clavicle, pushing her fist through her upper sternum as if it were mayonnaise, and when she pulls her hand back out it’s coated in black goo and filled with wriggling black forms. She pushes her hand into her chest again, and pulls out a sword. And she grows in size to eight feet tall.

She lets the black forms drip out of her hands and they, too, grow in size. They grow lizard-like legs and they climb the walls and dart around North in the doorway. One skitters across the ceiling and slithers into some type of switchboard next to the living quarters exit, and suddenly half the dorm rooms have their forcefields up again, narrowing the amount of foes the Babadon’t will have to face at once. The others keep growing in size, first as big as dogs, then as big as ponies – her first generation of children, hellbent on attacking the Hires left in open bedrooms or in the hallway.

[OOC: Tag into your starter and I will NPC the monsters for you between each round!]

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North, Remy and Setsuna

[piper90npcs]

The Babadon’t herself can’t shrink small enough to get past North, so instead she decides to attack. Still in She-Ra’s form, she takes the sword by both hands and lunges to try and skewer him – even if he dodges, she might be able to shove her way past him and get to the hallway, where her new, bulkier size will be more of an advantage than a hindrance.

[piper90npcs]

The pony-sized, blob-shaped Babydon’ts, due to their malleable form, can rapidly shift parts of their “bodies” into weapons, spears and huge needle-like claws and lamprey-esque mouths. They leave slimy trails of black along the walls and floor that they climb on, seemingly operating under a different definition of gravity than most people have to obey. Their bodies are tar-like goo, but chunks of teeth and hair are lodged in them.

Twelve of them surge through the hall, trying to corner people in their bedrooms or just attack them where they are. Those who aren’t locked inside their bedrooms may end up corralled in small groups together, where they’re assaulted by claws the size of traffic cones slashing at them.

Brand and Tio

[piper90npcs]

Tenten, Stacia and Rune

[piper90npcs]

Carolina, Leia and Alloran

[piper90npcs]

Nora, Rogue and Guy

[piper90npcs]

Dan and Ian

[piper90npcs]

[bothbarrels]

North has no weapons, no armor, nothing to defend himself with but his own wits and fighting ability. He thought he only had a shapeshifter to contend with, not one with a sword. But he intends to do whatever he can to defend the people on the rig, and he doesn't intend to back down from this.

When Fauxdora lunges forward with the sword, he drops his legs out from under himself, using the doorframe to control his fall and to launch his legs forward to kick at her legs. He doesn't intend to allow the shapeshifter to get away, so he's ready to grab her as soon as she tries to climb over him.

[whethertheyshould]

Ian had made the mistake of leaving his room when the commotion started. When he's confronted by a slimy black goo creature, he immediately shrinks against the wall.

"Damn, not again," he says. He's not a fighter.

[kingofneworleans]

North gets some extra kick that he's not expecting, in the form of a couple index cards, glowing magenta and screaming with energy as they fly past North into Fauxdora's chest. They explode on impact, helping to push her back.

Another couple of cards light up in Remy's hand as he steps into view. "Well now. Seems we're findin' ourselves at a bit of an impass, hein? You gotta know we ain't 'bout to be lettin' you go."

[hallelujahjunction]

Dan knows what he's good at, and what he's good at is not unarmed hand-to-hand combat with shapeshifting monsters. Dan's good at shooting things, and good at hitting things with a stick, and good at sweet-talking his way into places and a million other things, but the facts are this: he's a normal, slightly smaller-than-average mundane human without formal training in punching and kicking, and these are animated, weaponized goo monsters.

So he does what he knows he can do without being just another liability getting in the way of the combatants - he looks for the people more outmatched than he is and he puts himself between them and the threat. When he sees Dr. Malcolm shrinking against the wall, he bolts into a sprint and reaches to yank Dr. Malcolm by the arm with him, hoping to pull him into Dan's dorm room and hide him in the bathroom.

[takenalive]

Alloran's been in a fugue state, which, he knows he does this and is not happy about it. It lifts, as it does, with that sense of unreality and disconnect with his body that may or may not clear quickly on its own.

In any case, he assesses as quickly as he can - this seems like something Esplin would love, and also that would make short work of humans - gathers his weight, and leaps across the hallway like a deer, landing in a clatter of hooves and bringing his tail to bear. It cracks like a whip, too fast to quite see, as he slashes his blade across its center mass.

[whethertheyshould]

"Whoa!"

Ian doesn't know what Dan is doing but he sure as heck hopes Dan knows what Dan is doing. As soon as they're in the dorm he indicates to Dan that he can be released.

"I don't know if we can fight this thing off together or what. I sure as hell can't do it alone."

Folding the NPC tag into my tag because on mobile

[hallelujahjunction]

“Sorry!” Dan says, and he means it. He’s just glad that Ian didn’t elbow him in the face in alarm.

He stands on his tip-toes and starts grabbing things he’s stashed under his top-bunk mattress in case of attack - a shiv made of a piece of a broom Dan broke off in the maintenance closet, little pill bottles full of oils. He tosses the shiv to Ian, although he doesn’t intend for Ian to fight if he can help it. “You take that. Bathroom closes but doesn’t lock. Hide out in there until-“

Dan doesn’t get to finish his thought, because one of the infant monsters rounds the corner and spies them both in the dorm room. It scrabbles over the wall and throws a long, gooey tendril whip-fast in Ian’s direction.

[piper90npcs]

Fauxdora leaps upwards to avoid North's kick, putting her just in line for Remy's cards, which collide with her and explode and push her back. She howls more with anger than pain-

-and rips one of the cots from the wall and slams the bedframe at both North and Remy like a baseball bat.

[onequartershark]

Carolina didn't expect it to happen like this, but Carolina did expect something to happen and took measures.

She sorely misses her armor and would kill for a rifle, but one must do what one can with one has. What she has for "measures" today is a fire extinguisher.

This starts paying dividends when she uses it to block a spiked tendril that has lashed out at her before the big alien guy with the tail gets involved.

"I cannot believe it took this long for us to know this thing was here!"

Is it messed up that it's sort of a relief that it's all going to hell and she has something to fight now? Maybe.

[passifloraincarnata]

A barely contained yell of pre-verbal rage, just a dopplering yowl of "nnnngggaaaaaaaaaaAAAAARRHHH!" rips through the air from behind Remy and North, spiking in volume and intensity at roughly the same moment that red light flares both behind and in front of the two men.

Cure Passion, a blur of red and pink in a ruffly, fluttering dress, blips into the room right in between them and the Babadon't/Babadora/Fauxdora monster, teeth bared in a frankly vicious snarl, and catches the bed bare-handed before it can connect, grunting with the force of the impact.

She grips the bedframe tight, metal crumpling under her fingers, digging handholds in, determined not to let go, as she rages at the creature aloud. "How dare you abuse the trust shared between Adora and Catra as a shield for such evil! Monsters that would dare to ruin such hard-won happiness as theirs for your own foul purposes cannot be allowed to go unpunished!"

She growls, and attempts to turn the makeshift bedframe-bat against the Fauxdora creature by swinging it back against the nearby wall from her end. "My red heart is the proof of happiness! Freshly-ripened, I am Cure Passion - and I won't let you leave here alive!"

Re: Brand and Tio

[runes_brand]

"Fuck! Fuck!"

This is why Brand didn't want to leave their fucking room! He and Rune had been separated by the fucking flood of fucking goo monsters and now he can't fucking see where Rune ended up.

Brand pulls a shiv out of his jumpsuit and drops into the cold, clear space he goes to in a fight. He's aware of the blue-haired teenager who's been cornered with him in the same way he's aware of everything else around him he might bump into or trip over. What's important now is that he gets through these fucking things over to where Rune is.

[71lines]

Guess who's taking this whole thing rather personally?

For one thing, Adora was a friend of hers, recent fight notwithstanding. For another, she argued against Adora as a suspect (or, rather, against her as the only suspect). And now there's blobs trying to eat her.

Unfortunately for them, Tenten in a cramped environment is a recipe for doom. Unfortunately for Tenten, Jorgmund was clumsy enough to lose her weapons scroll for her. And, despite the tricks she's learned, judging distance is still an issue. So even with monster claws, she's better off going in up close. Which she does, quite vigorously, and with a mop.

Just, you know. Don't mind if you get spattered with black goop. It probably won't get you pregnant with nightmare blobs, these things breed via hot tubs.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia doesn't have time to shimmy out of her jumpsuit, she simply blossoms out of it -- if turning into a hulking wolf monster can be called "blossoming" outside of some puberty-metaphor horror movie. She meets the babydon'ts' claws with her own, and her teeth besides.

Best thing she can do is hold its attention, keep it distracted from Rune and Tenten.

Well, maybe just Rune. Tenten seems pretty determined to get up in that business with her mop.

Re: Nora, Rogue and Guy

[acroodawakening]

Due to some anxiety over whether or not his blonde roommate with no alibi was the doppleganger, Guy had been in the hallway, putting some distance between them. Which means he's not safely behind a forcefield when the shit hits the fan.

Of course. This is his usual luck.

"Hrunghgnnngh!" The inarticulate noise Guy makes in disgust at the creatures is almost comical, like the verbal equivalent of a full-body shudders.

Ugh, and he still hasn't found anything he could make into a spear in this place.

One of the monsters takes a swing at him, and he narrowly dodges it with a "Whoa!" He's a very good climber, so he jumps up on the wall parkour! and kicks off a horizontal pipe so he can reach a pipe on the ceiling of the hall. He uses the height and initial momentum to swing and kick the monster that almost got him as hard as he can.

Then he just stays up there, monkey-barring around a little, lifting his body out of the way when they swipe at him and using the momentum of swinging it back down to kick another one.

Until they start climbing sideways on the walls and start swiping at him from there.

"Oh, come on!" he cries out, dropping back down. Now angry, he stomps his foot down on one of the monsters he'd kicked down, grabs the spear sticking out of its body and snaps it off. It lets out an inhuman screech that is silenced when he stabs it over and over.

He spots Nora and Rogue and backs towards them. Safety in numbers, after all.

"Okay, downside, they're made of weapons. Upside -" he hefts up the spear and says brightly, "they're, uh, made of weapons."

[hot_dad]

It's hardly the first time he's fighting without Brand right behind him, but he certainly doesn't like not even knowing where his partner is, separated by a mass of gunkmonsters and potentially barriers sealing off rooms. But he doesn't need to see Brand to know he's alright for the moment, at least – he recognizes the feeling thrumming through their Companion bond, the cool and clearheaded state of Brand in the middle of a fight.

Besides, he's got more immediate concerns in the form of two young ladies that he's not about to abandon with a sludgebeast.

Neither of them seem particularly phased, but that doesn't mean much. He has a thirteen year old girl that would just as readily be charging something like this with a homemade shiv. At least Stacia hulking out into a were-form is familiar enough to lessen the concern – he's seen enough of her breed to know their durability – but the other one is just charging in with a fucking mop.

Whispering a cantrip that sends a surge of adrenaline rushing through him, Rune cycles around the goo monster. It's a cramped space for a fight, but he can at least try to divert its attention from the girls. Without a weapon, he settles for the next best thing, aiming a finger at the roiling black mass and shooting a firebolt into it.

[piper90npcs]

The babydon't grapples with the mop, seemingly unaware that Stacia is transforming. Its head grows a crocodile-like mouth, while knives grow from its inky torso into hands. It tries to snap up the mop in its teeth while slicing at Tenten's hands.

It squeals when the firebolt hits its back, and for a moment is distracted.

In the meanwhile, one of its siblings stampedes down the hallway ceiling, growing long claws, and leaps at Rune's back.

[alderaani]

"A friend of mine prefers straight-up fights, I'm beginning to see why." Leia had..a chair. It wasn't much but it was the nearest thing she could grab when vacating the rooms and it was at least light enough that she could move and strong enough to put between her and something else.

Alloran leaped into the fight as someone with the title War Prince would and the other woman beside her was clearly a competent warrior just from her stance and the sharp efficiency of her movement.

Leia checked behind them to ensure they weren't being flanked. "Do we know anything about this thing?"

She yelped as one of those tendrils snapped toward her and she parried ridiculously with the chair.

[just_rogue]

"Really downside is they're tryin' ta hurt ours. An Ah don't stand for that at all." Rogue cracked her knuckles, a purely pointless gesture but one that made her feel like she was getting ready for the fight.

"Name's Rogue, Ah'm basically yer next best thing to a wall 'tween you an' that thing. So feel free ta use me for cover." She called out to the other two and started wading forward like this wasn't anything new.

Well, after the Brood and Phalanx and Krakoa it really wasn't anything too strange. She bobbed and ducked to avoid some shots until she could get close enough to rip one of those blades out of their...

....eww

ok, so the blades were their hands. Gross.

She hustled back to the others. "One ya want this?"